wrestling / Columns

Ask 411 Wrestling: Is Vince McMahon a Narcissist?

August 19, 2015 | Posted by Mathew Sforcina

Welcome to Ask 411 Wrestling, your one stop shop for obscure wrestling trivia questions and answers to half of them at best! I am your question wrangler and occasional answerer, Mathew Sforcina, and WWE is heading into Summerslam right now. So let’s talk about everything but, shall we?

Got a question that is or isn’t about Summerslam? Send it to [email protected] and I’ll give it the old college try.

NON-SUMMERSLAM BANNER!

Zeldas!

Check out my Drabble blog, 1/10 of a Picture! I might be posting something about Summerslam on there later in the week, I’m still debating it, so keep an eye out on that.

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Feedback Loop

This Is Awesome!: My issue with the chant is that it, in my mind, is praising the wrong thing. I appreciate athletic ability, and I totally get the appeal of spotfests and the like, however to me wrestling is about drama and storytelling, and I think that the chant is used more as a “you’re doing cool shit” response rather than “I am emotionally invested in this match” response. Again, any reaction is better than none at all, but I’d rather have people chanting for the babyface to make a comeback or insulting the heel rather than praising the athletic ability of them. It’s not always used like that, but often enough to tar the chant a bit in my mind. But it’s a very minor tarring, maybe a couple feathers at most.

I did get at least one fellow independent wrestler who agrees with my basic point so thank you Guy Who I’m Not Sure Is OK With Me Mentioning Their Name.

The Trivia Crown

I am a living pro wrestler. I’ve had several gimmick/wrestling personas and have won singles and/or tag team titles with all of them. My first gimmick had a name which was used many years later by someone better known on the internet and WWE’s version of a wrestling promotion than by casual fans. I have a loose connection with wrestling groups from WCW, WWE and ECW, including The Horsemen. I’ve won singles and tag team titles with or from several members of WWE’s Hall of Fame. I’ve teamed with vikings, gorillas, weather events and common men. And I even did a favor to. . . mankind by accepting a head position with a current wrestling promotion. And, unlike a rock band from the 80’s, I am a man with lots of hats. Who am I?

No one got this, so here’s Maraviloso with the answer.

I am a living pro wrestler. I’ve had several gimmick/wrestling personas and have won singles and/or tag team titles with all of them. My first gimmick had a name which was used many years later by someone better known on the internet and WWE’s version of a wrestling promotion (ECW) than by casual fans (The Big O). I have a loose connection with wrestling groups from WCW, WWE and ECW, including The Horsemen (I was managed by Boris Malenko, father of Dean Malenko, member of Triple Threat, The Horsemen, Revolution and The Radicals). I’ve won singles and tag team titles with or from several members of WWE’s Hall of Fame (Dusty Rhodes, Barry Windham, Don Muraco, Peter Maivia and others). I’ve teamed with vikings (Thor The Viking, a.k.a. Scott Irwin), gorillas (King Kong Bundy), weather events (Big Thunder Gene Kiniski) and common men (Dusty Rhodes). And I even did a favor to. . . mankind (Mick Foley) by accepting a head position (head of security) with a current wrestling promotion (TNA). And, unlike a rock band from the 80’s, I am a man with lots of hats. Who am I?

BUGSY MCGRAW

Who am I? I share a link with John Cena, a Tough Enough Winner, and the Anoa’I family (multiple times). My first match on TV in the big leagues was a six man tag match, where one of the men my team beat would be my first tag team title partner in the company. I helped orchestrate Stephanie McMahon getting beat up one time. I also played a part in the formation of Evolution, sort of. I’m a fan of the street but not of the enigma, I am who?

Getting Down To All The Business

Josh wants to contrast and compare.

I miss the days when Smackdown was a relevant show that you needed to watch as well as Raw. I can’t remember the last time I actually did. I largely blame the death of the brand extension, as well as general poor writing that makes every Smackdown match immediately have a rematch on the following Raw. But here’s my actual question: Since August 30, 2011, not counting stripping a belt from someone or forfeiting a belt, how many titles have actually changed hands on a Smackdown show? (Extra credit: Compare this number to how many titles have changed hands on Raw since then)

OK…

Smackdown Title Changes Since August 30 2011

World Heavyweight Title Alberto Del Rio over Big Show, January 11, 2013.

Total: One

Raw Title Changes Since August 30 2011

World Heavyweight Title Dolph Ziggler over Alberto Del Rio April 8, 2013
Divas Championship Nikki Bella over Beth Phoenix April 23, 2012
Divas Championship Kaitlyn over Eve Torres January 14, 2013
Divas Championship Paige over AJ Lee April 7, 2014
Divas Championship AJ Lee over Paige June 30, 2014
United States Title Jack Swagger over Santino January 16, 2012
United States Title Santino over Jack Swagger March 5, 2012
United States Title Kofi Kingston over Cesaro April 15, 2013
United States Title Sheamus over Dean Ambrose May 5, 2014
United States Title Rusev over Sheamus November 3, 2014*
Unified Tag Titles Kofi Kingston & R-Truth over Primo & Epico April 30, 2012
Unified Tag Titles Cody Rhodes and Goldust over The Shield October 14, 2013
Unified Tag Titles The Usos over The New Age Outlaws March 3, 2014
Unified Tag Titles The Usos over Miz & Mizdow December 29, 2014

Total: Fourteen (if you include Rusev/Swagger on the Raw Backstage Pass)

So there’s a little bit of an imbalance there.

From the most blatant half-Chandler ever, to a fairly simple question from Rodney.

Is it true that former WWE diva and Hall of Famer Tammy Sytch aka (Sunny) is filming adult movies for Vivid now.

Now? As in when I’m writing this? No. However, that answer may change in the future, as Tammy has confirmed that Vivid has offered her a contract to star in adult film entertainment, but she has not yet signed up. She may eventually decide not to sign on the bottom line, she may decide to sign up. Supposedly the stumbling block is that Vivid want to do something set in a wrestling ring while Ms. Sytch feels that’s played out, but that’s rumor. In any case, future deals are in the future, as the name implies. Right this second, no, she’s not working for Vivid.

She is offering private skype sessions right now though, so you could always book one of those and ask her yourself.

Moving quickly away now, because I’d rather not get into arguments about the moral issues of porn vs camwork, let’s let Andron take us back to titles and the WWE.

why did WWE drop the hardcore and cruiserweight titles? Is there any chance in seeing those make a come back?

The titles were dropped for different reasons.

The Hardcore Title was twofold, one minor, one major. There was a general feeling that the belt had run its course, in terms of the gimmick (the 24/7 rule was removed a few weeks before it left) and the style, but the main reason is vanished was because of the Great IC Title Prop Up Push of ‘01/’02.

See, back when they brought in the Brand Extension, the initial plan was for each brand to have a main championship with a new face to build around. Smackdown would have the WWE Title, with Brock Lesnar holding that beautiful title (shut up I still love that belt), and on Raw, the main belt would be… The Intercontinental Title. As held by RVD.

Now, yes, the IC title has been historically a step below the WWE. So, to build the title up, they unified it the WCW US title back at Survivor Series, then they folded in the European and Hardcore title. Thus they’d have a bunch of lineage and numbers and facts they could use to try and make the title seem important (“It dates back to 1975! Men and Women feature in its lineage! Everyone from Shane McMahon to Terry Funk have played a part!”) to make it on par with the WWE title.

Until it was decided that Triple H would make a better guy to build around, and he was of the thought that the IC title wasn’t important enough, and that the Big Gold Belt should be brought back, and then the IC title got unified with THAT one to give it some oomph.

So the Hardcore Title was sacrificed to try and get the IC/World Title over. The Cruiserweight Title, on the other hand, was a victim of the talent pool shrinking while at the same time growing.

See, when the Cruiserweight Title was last won by… sigh, Hornswoggle at the Great American Bash 07 event, he didn’t just beat Chavo Guerrero, Jimmy Wang Yang, Shannon Moore, Funaki, and Jamie Noble, he beat practically the entire bloody division. Those five men were pretty much the entire division as it stood, with a few of them looking to move into tag teams soon. Plus, the entire brand was getting smaller in terms of average size, so suddenly saying Chavo is a Cruiserweight but Matt Hardy is a US title contender, for example, seems weird when they’re practically the same size.

The division as it stood was small, and was lost in a larger group of wrestlers in which the cruiserweights didn’t stand out. So they pulled the plug on the division.

At least, that’s how I’m reading the situation.

Brendon asks about the short lived gimmick of one Beefcake and then PPV dates.

I know I’ve asked this before but I’m not sure I got an answer and/or can’t find one in the archives. I’m really interested in Beefcake’s Mariner gimmick. Supposedly, he only showed up twice. I found both videos online: attacking Earthquake and Martel. But, if you search a bit, you find the pic below. It looks like it could be Beefcake, possibly. It looks like WWF ropes. But, it does not look like the same Mariner gimmick in the videos. This gimmick has also been called Fur Face, so this makes a little since. But, when did he have this outfit? Please tell me what this is and where the pics came from.

The Mariner/‘Furface’ gimmick (the character was never named) was short lived, and was Beefcake’s first gimmick back after the parasailing accident that crushed his head, pretty much. It ran in early 1991, and then was quietly ended without a payoff. WWE.com may have a video on him up, it wasn’t working when I visited but maybe you’ll have more luck.

Anyway, looking at the always useful HistoryofWWE.com site, I found that he attacked, on various occasions, Paul Roma and Hercules, Rick Martel, Demolition, Earthquake and Dino Bravo. But that guy in the photo looks a pretty dead ringer for Paul Roma. And Roma and Herc were the very first men attacked by The Mariner, so I would presume that was the first outfit made for the guy, and then when they finally debuted it on TV, by that time, they’d changed the outfit to the one that made it on TV.

So yeah, that outfit never made it to air, he had a half dozen attacks that were unaired before the couple that did get on air got on air. So there you go.

Also, back in the days of WCW, was WWF the company that decided PPV dates? They obviously never ran the same Sundays, so did WCW wait for WWF to announce their date for the month or was it some other way?

The issue of which days which company would run a PPV must have been arranged somehow, for the simple fact that after the Survivor Series/Starrcade and Wrestlemania/Clash 1 incidents, the PPV companies put their foot down and told the two companies they weren’t ever allowed to have two shows on the same day again, or else they’d have to deal with no PPV for them. So obviously they worked out some sort of system, although at first it wasn’t really that big a deal since the PPVs tended to be staggered when each company was only running a few a year, they often didn’t overlap at all. But yes, once they hit one a month, presumably there was a system in place where they co-ordinated in some fashion, but I was unable to find any sources on how it happened. But I suspect it was a case of WWE booked first and then WCW (and later ECW) booked around them, but I have no proof on that. Perhaps a reader knows.

Ossie wants to discuss a babyface manager.

Hey MQ, as usual loving your work & look forward to the column every week. Here’s a qn that will either be really easy or frustratingly elusive to answer. In the mid to late 80s Oliver Humperdink joined the WWF. The gimmick seemed to be a face manager to play off against the heel stables (perhaps as Captain Lou Albano had left?) & he had a couple of face wrestlers as clients, primarily after dramatic turns – Bam Bam & Orndorff are the 2 I remember. But the “stable” never really did anything in any meaningful way I remember, after a pretty short time Humperdink simply disappeared & nothing more was made of it. This has always intrigued me: is there any info about the broader plan here & why it was so suddenly & quietly dropped? Cheers

It wasn’t much of a stable, as they were the only two men he managed. I was only able to find some speculation, but it makes sense. The idea appears to be that WWF wanted to have a face manager around for guys, like Bigelow, who couldn’t talk. And like with a lot of people, they tinkered with the gimmick when he came in when it really didn’t need to be fiddled with. But there doesn’t seem to have been any sort of long term plan, just that WWF wanted a face manager for upper mid card guys and they thought Humperdink would go well. Beyond that…

Readers?

Ben is a reader and he wants to talk about hats.

So, I ask you to put on a couple of different hats…

Give me what you would consider to be YOUR psychological profile of Vincent Kennedy McMahon..

I’m not a trained psychologist, I’m not even a talented amateur. So this is all bunk, obviously.

Vince McMahon right now is a different man than the boy who grew up not knowing his father, or even the man who risked everything on Wrestlemania, or the man who ‘beat’ Ted Turner. So the profile has changed over time, of course. However, the pattern I keep seeing is one of Vince vs. The World, but with a dash of stubbornness to it, that while it’s him vs. The World, it’ll always blink first.

Obviously the childhood would have played a part in shaping this view, but with everything I’ve read and seen, Vince always has to be fighting someone, fighting a new battle, but it’ll be an easy win for him. He’d take over wrestling, then he’d move into other fields, movies, football, politics, and they’ll be easy wins for him. And back in his default field, wrestling, at the end of the day what he likes is what will work, and thus his choice of what wrestling should be about, big muscular gods, that’s always the best choice unless his back is truly against a wall.

Which is all stuff that has been said before…

I don’t think Vince is nearly as stupid or insane as other people will claim, but he sees himself as a fighter, and he wants that in other people. As much as he dislikes Heyman personally, he respects the man for fighting for his vision every day he ran ECW. He doesn’t like Millennials because he doesn’t see the same fire that he had, they don’t knuckle down and work hard against adversity, they’d rather call out BS then just deal with it.

He’s built an empire with his bare hands, in his mind, and he’s surrounded by people too lazy to pick up a shovel. He sees what he wants and goes after it, while other people complain about the glare.

So while you can assign labels like ‘narcissist’ and ‘persecution complex’ and the like, at the end of the day, I see Vince McMahon as a man who had to fight for a lot in his early life. And he can’t ever stop fighting, even when he should.

But yeah, that’s total bunk, as I said before.

Video Break!

Botchamania!

Stuff Fans Say!

Joe Gagne!

New fricking legacyinc!

Also, regarding questions that you are asked. What would you say are your favorite “types” of questions to answer?

Oh, I just love being asked to psychoanalyse people.

I think that my preferred questions are opinion ones (because they are easy and I like to think about wrestling) and the fact based ones that aren’t just pure numbers. Counting ones SUCK, unless I have a resource that has already done it for me. Likewise a lot of the “what would have happened if…” questions bug me, as they assume that there was a plan in place and that I know about it, which is rarely the case.

But yeah, opinions, interesting facts, and I suppose simple easy ones too. Those are my favorite.

Speaking of, Creed asks about the end of an angle he missed.

Something I’ve always wondered about: there was a Monday Night Raw in the late 90s during the Jake Roberts / Jerry Lawler feud where Roberts came to the ring and appeared to be drunk. I assumed it was a trick, much like CM Punk did with the sobriety test, to lure in his rival. However, I stepped away from the TV, came back and.. it was a commercial. Didn’t see what happened after that… any information to help fill this gap in my memory?

Thanks for the column, the insights and history are always a pleasure to read!

That was the end of the Roberts/Lawler feud actually, with Jake getting his final revenge on Lawler. You do indeed have it on the money, it was a ruse where Jake stumbled down to the ring, with a bottle in a brown paper bag ‘hidden’ behind his back, and then the moment the bell rang he nailed a crisp DDT and got the pin, and then poured the booze down Jerry Lawler’s throat, which, if you recall, was the ‘first’ drink Jerry Lawler ever had as he had claimed to have never touched a drop during the feud.

You can read a recap of the feud here if you really want to.

Connor doesn’t know if it’s a work when you work a work and work yourself into a shoot.

Was Halloween Havoc 1999 (Sting vs Hogan) a work or shoot?

What is this, Wrestlecrap week?

So for those who refuse to watch the video, Halloween Havoc 99 was the first WCW PPV Vince Russo had full control over. And the main event was set to be Hulk Hogan’s rematch for the WCW World Title after losing it the previous month when Sting turned heel. Hogan was back in the red and yellow at this point, by the way.

Anyway, Hogan’s WCW “Not At All Real American” theme plays for a good long while, then Sting came out, then Hogan came out eventually in street clothes, then laid down, let Sting pin him, and walked out.

So what was it?

It was a Worked Shoot.

See, Hogan was having some time off coming up, which in Russo’s mind everyone knew about, and since Russo wanted to end the Hogan/Sting angle, which in Russo’s mind again everyone knew about, he would order Hogan to go out and lose quickly. So Hogan would go out and lay down to stick it to Russo, and then a few months later he’d come back and make his big return against Bret Hart and his nWo.

Russo assumed every fan knew everything about the backstage stuff and thus would be intrigued by backstage stuff coming onto screen, which is 99% false. But yeah, this was a total work, albeit one designed to look like a shoot.

William talks about rivers and sneak attacks.

Hey man. Longtime reader first time asking a question. I’ve been watching old attitude era wwf and was wondering 2 things. 1, when did the rock get the ic title back after Austin threw it in the river?

In kayfabe? Well it wasn’t the week after Austin tossed it, he was still beltless then.

It wasn’t by the 10th of January 1998, he was still beltless then.

The Royal Rumble. That’s when he got a brand new title belt, to replace the one Austin ‘threw’ into the river.

2, why did Jeff Jarrett attack Owen hart at the royal rumble 98? Thanks a lot. Love your column.

Because Jarrett was the focal point of the NWA ‘Invasion’ that Cornette was bringing in, and he needed a strong babyface to attack and be a dick towards, preferably one who wasn’t going to be winning the Rumble due to interference from Triple H anyway.

In kayfabe, because Hart was flying the WWF colours despite having a good reason not to? It was never explained.

Ryan asks about Kurt Angle being a heel. As if that isn’t his god given perfect role…

There’s one thing I’ve never understood about the Invasion angle and wondered if you knew the answer: Why the hell did they turn Kurt Angle heel? He was on fire as a babyface all summer, running a classic program with Austin. Then, he becomes even more popular for regrettable reasons (he’s an American gold medalist Olympian and the country is attacked). Twelve days after tragedy strikes, the WWF has the good fortune of having a PPV schedule in his hometown. He wins the belt in a truly special moment and the whole locker room comes out to celebrate. He’s the American hero champion and everything’s great. Then, in the blink of an eye, he’s a heel again. It strikes me as one of the most nonsensical, stupid, money-burning decisions ever. Was there a reason?

I don’t get to use that enough.

The short answer is that no-one in the Alliance knew how to work.

*3/4 of a Chandler*

Or that is, Vince thought no-one in the Alliance was working out, they weren’t over like his WWF guys. So they needed a big name to get a boost in credibility, especially for the Winner Takes All match, no-one could ever buy DDP or Lance Storm or Mike Awesome as an equal of Kane, so the Alliance needed a name like Angle there to make you think they had a shot, plus it allowed them to have him screw over Austin at the PPV and thus turn Austin face and thus hit the bit reset after Austin’s heel run hadn’t worked out for various reasons.

It was basically a panic move designed for a short term credibility boost to invading heels WWF had screwed up, plus a way to turn back their top heel that they’d REALLY screwed up.

Mick forces me to cheat a little.

Love the column… WWE’s “Top 5” YouTube show recently featured the most PPV wins. Which got me thinking – who has the most PPV losses of all time?

I’m guessing Mark Henry. If you could put together a top 5, it would be great.

Thanks!

OK, so here’s what I’m doing. I’m going to profightdb, and just going down the list of most WWE PPV matches and taking their losses until I have 5 who are higher than the number of matches of where I’m up to, and assuming that’s the (rough) answer, ok? Ok. (Yes, this will include WCW/ECW, but I’m not bothering to remove those).

Kane 168 matches, 97 losses
Triple H 162 matches, 76 losses
The Undertaker 161 matches, 66 losses
John Cena 141 matches, 52 losses
The Big Show 136 matches, 99 losses
Chris Jericho 128 matches, 91 losses
Randy Orton 128 matches, 66 losses
Edge, 127 matches, 59 losses
Shawn Michaels 117 matches, 58 losses
Christian 100 matches,72 losses
Rey Mysterio 95 matches, 78 losses
Matt Hardy 85 matches, 60 losses
JBL 84 matches, 49 losses
CM Punk 82 matches, 56 losses
Jeff Hardy 81 matches, 68 losses
Kurt Angle 81 matches, 74 losses
The Rock 79 matches, 35 losses
The Miz 78 matches, 50 losses
Billy Gunn 74 matches, 61 losses
Steve Austin 72 matches, 41 losses

That seems a good enough group. So, I’d say the top five are:

The Big Show 99 losses
Kane 97 losses
Chris Jericho 91 losses
Rey Mysterio 78 losses
Triple H 76 losses

But if anyone has a name that you think is higher, let me know and I’ll see if I have to adjust the list for next week.

Evan asks about a What If…

Been reading this column for as long as I remember, but this is only my 2nd ever question (my first was “why does Hulk Hogan look exactly the same now as he did in 1988” – you disagreed and I still stand my ground!)

A little fantasy booking, heading into a question:
Wrestlemania 8 – Hogan/Flair receives the adulation Vince was hoping for on the house show circuit and is set as the Main Event. This changes the uppercard slightly to Macho/Roberts and Taker/Sid with the undercard remaining as is. Given the push that Sid was receiving, it is reasonable to assume that he defeats Taker (not at all a given, but could totally have happened, so please bear with me).

Question: Now that Taker has lost in his 2nd Wrestlemania match, how does this impact his future Wrestlemania career/legacy? Obviously, the streak didn’t really become a thing until 2005 (Mania 21) but what then? Does he lose more often? Does he develop a different legacy? Does he retire earlier?

OK, quick downer: That wasn’t going to happen. Roberts/Taker was always happening in order for Taker to become new Creepy Babyface de jour, if Hogan/Flair happens still you’d run Macho/Sid with Macho going over so Macho/Flair could run on the house shows after WM until Hogan came back from his movie.

But fine, let’s say it goes down as you say. What happens?

For the early days, not a lot changes, since every time Taker won his match prior to Wrestlemania X7 at the earliest, the fact he was undefeated at WM was just trivia, in every case him winning was the logical booking choice. X7 he still wins because Shawn still turns up in no state to perform.

I think Flair would actually be the first time that him being with a loss might lead to him doing a job, since they wanted to do the Flair/Vince company split angle, and Flair winning via a bit of the ultraviolence would be as good an excuse as any, plus given the actions Taker had done in the lead up, him tapping to the Arn spinebuster into a Flair figure four would be the ‘right’ booking choice.

And then each match from then becomes a booking issue, he wouldn’t always be in a big role, heck he might even get left off once or twice. He’d probably drop the tag match with Nathan Jones, he might lose to Orton, the title wins he’d probably still get… The Michaels/Taker matches would have a different vibe though. 25 would have to be built on the fact that Taker had never beaten Michaels one on one, 1, 2, 3. Taker would have to chase Shawn and force the issue, then once he got the win Michaels would then turn the screws back and demand a rematch, and put his career on the line to prove he’s Mr. Wrestlemania.

I would say that his general career arc would be the same, except it wouldn’t be as regular. He’d still be a special attraction guy, it’s just that he’d pop up more randomly, he wouldn’t just turn up at Wrestlemania. He might work a Summerslam here, a Rumble there, without the Wrestlemania Streak he becomes just another part timer stealing the spotlight from the guys there every week, as some people will claim. Without the Streak, he is still The Undertaker, he just lacks the connection to the one event.

But that’s my take. What about you guys, what do you think? Discuss it below, then enjoy Summerslam, and I’ll be back next week. Until then, dear readers…